March 16, 2017

Saffron storm in Uttar Pradesh

U.P. has been the epicentre of identity politics, but this election exposed the limits of the politics of social justice

The big verdict in the big State is out. It highlights several important trends, which though specific to Uttar Pradesh,
have implications far beyond it. The spectacular political triumph of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the
strongest evidence yet of the tectonic shift in progress since the 2014
Lok Sabha election; to all intents and purposes, the BJP’s resurgence
in U.P. consolidates the rightward shift in Indian politics and alters
the balance of power to its advantage ahead of the 2019 general
election.

Nationalisation of elections

At
a broader level, the historic outcome represents the nationalisation of
State elections which is a key element of the BJP’s strategy to
establish its electoral dominance across the country. The similarity in
the national and State election outcomes indicates the
re-nationalisation of elections. What underpins nationalisation? Mr.
Modi was front and centre in the campaign; thanks to him, the party won a
massive majority in a State election without a local face. People voted
for Mr. Modi in the State election as though they were voting in a
general election. This knocked out the earlier trend of regionalisation
when people voted in the general election as though they were voting in
State elections.

Also, people voted for Mr. Modi even though he has not done much to
deliver on the promises of development, and moreover has not done much
for U.P. But the public dissatisfaction with the incumbent State
government was enough to persuade voters to believe the Prime Minister’s
promise of development rather than either of the two State-based
alternatives on offer. Polarisation was actively fuelled by communal
appeals, with Mr. Modi taking the lead in stoking the feeling of
discrimination against Hindus, pushing in the process a shift towards
majoritarian consolidation. The election campaign which started on the
high note of development then began to traverse the proverbial ground of
polarisation. Not a single Muslim was given a BJP ticket. This sent a
clear message that the BJP would not ‘appease minorities’, and that
Muslims would be shown their place. Muslims have indeed been shown their
place in this election.
As in 2014, it was not overt communalism
or straightforward development rhetoric; it was a heady cocktail of both
elements couched within a discourse of ‘communalised development’. This
mix was dressed up in the political language of ‘nationalism’ which
appeals to large parts of U.P.’s electorate. The secular parties were
unable to offer an effective counter-narrative to this discourse.
In
a surcharged political climate, the critical issue is not the project
of ‘development for all’, but the prospect of development for certain
groups cleverly articulated in the rhetoric of discrimination against
none. The odious communal reference to graveyards and crematoriums in
Mr. Modi’s Fatehpur speech repeated by BJP president Amit Shah
immediately afterwards and laced with ‘KASAB’ left no scope for
misunderstanding which way the politics of development was going. The
mordant discourse split U.P., which was once defined by cultural
syncretism and Ganga-Jumni culture, along Hindu-Muslim lines.

Marginalising Muslims

In the event, many voters were willing to buy into the BJP’s charges of minority appeasement. Muslims, on the other hand, were expected to vote en masse
for the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Congress alliance in order to check the
BJP’s advance but it seems this didn’t quite happen because many Muslims
reportedly voted for the Bahujan Samaj Party. Nonetheless, the prospect
of Muslim consolidation behind the SP was used as a rallying cry for
the polarisation of Hindu votes.
While the BJP leadership was
propagating its mantra of ‘development for all’, it lost no opportunity
to indulge in ‘community-oriented developmentalism’ of its own. It
repeatedly attacked the SP government for discriminating between Hindus
and Muslims even at the level of providing basic facilities like
electricity. The SP government released detailed data of electricity
provisions during Eid and Diwali festivals, but it certainly didn’t stop
the BJP from continuing to make wild charges of discrimination and
giving the impression that it is the only party to challenge the
patronage system practised by the SP and Congress. Undeterred by facts,
it went on to complain that Muslims were the only ones to benefit from
the Kanya Vidya Dhan Yojana, under which the U.P. government provides
assistance of ₹30,000 to each girl student who has passed the 12th board
examinations with distinction. It is evident that post-truth is having a
field day in U.P. A blithe disregard for facts characterised the
political campaign of the BJP in this election.
U.P. has been the
epicentre of identity politics for over two decades but this election
exposed the limits of the politics of social justice. The OBC and Dalit
movement, which started off as a political voice of the marginalised
social groups giving them a sense of participation in political affairs,
had been reduced to the politics of reservations with benefits cornered
by particular segments of these castes which alienated sub-groups
within the wider category. The BJP was quick to take advantage of the
discontent of large social segments with old style identity politics.
Turning the politics of social justice on its head, the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)/BJP crafted a broad-based identity politics on
the ruins of the old political order which had outlived its utility for a
critical mass of OBCs. It mobilised a new bloc of voters by showering
attention on the most backward among them — the non-Yadav OBCs and
non-Jatav Dalits — that blunted the politics of BSP and SP in one
stroke. The terms of engagement were unmistakably driven by identity and
motivated by resentment towards Yadav-Muslim domination under SP rule.
The BJP’s idea of community politics gained new traction as a large
number of Hindu voters saw it as a more capacious identity which aligns
them to a larger narrative than the fragmentation inherent in caste
politics.
The strategy of reverse social engineering that Mr. Shah
scripted was clearly aimed at mobilising the most backward castes,
notably non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits, to capture the heartland
State. In pursuit of this agenda, he distributed tickets copiously to
non-Yadav OBCs and to non-Jatavs in reserved seats. Mr. Modi’s assiduous
wooing of non-Yadav OBCs and Dalits convinced large sections of them to
desert the SP and BSP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and again in the
2017 Assembly elections.

The power of propaganda

Finally,
the stunning victory emphasises the importance of propaganda and
messaging. No one can match up to the appeal and the energy of Mr. Modi
when it comes to non-stop election campaigning, and the organisational
capacity of the RSS when it comes to relentless propaganda and booth
management executed in this election by 1.4 lakh booth samitis.
Demonetisation is a good illustration of the power of propaganda. Voters
in U.P. seem to connect to Mr. Modi’s political messaging and were more
than willing to forgive the hardships inflicted on them by notebandi.
In
the end, a fractured opposition too helped the BJP. In a three-cornered
contest, the BJP had a strong advantage. The party’s vote share jumped
from just 15% in 2012 to 39.6% in 2017, which was large enough to win
more than a three-fourths majority against a divided opposition. The
combined vote share of the BSP (22.2%) and the SP-Congress alliance
(28.2%) adds up to over 50%. The Opposition’s only hope of taking on Mr.
Modi and the ruling party is to unite on a common platform and ensure
that the vote is not split since 50% of voters have not been swayed by
BJP’s ideology of ‘communalised development’, which is an essential part
of its growth strategy.

Zoya
Hasan is Professor Emerita, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal
Nehru University and Distinguished Professor, Council for Social
Development, New Delhi

Map of L K Advani's Rath Yatra of 1990

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